If you were expecting to shop for electricity from the company of your choice, after the landmark Bill passed in the Lok Sabha three weeks ago, you have to wait.One reason is that the Lok Sabha passed the Bill with ‘‘pressure’’ as the measure of electricity, not ‘‘voltage.’’ But that’s just one. The Opposition has suggested 81 amendments — some of them basic, the others bizarre — to the Bill before it comes up for discussion in the Rajya Sabha tomorrow. Then, it will have to make the mandatory round to the Lok Sabha again and come back to the upper house for clearance.Rajya Sabha members who have proposed the amendments include Kapil Sibal and Pranab Mukherjee (Congress) who have jointly moved 19 amendments, Santosh Bagrodia, also of the Congress, with 33 amendments and Jibon Roy of the CPI(M) with 28 amendments.The amendments suggested by Roy challenge the very basic intention of the Bill which wants the break-up of the cash-strapped State Electricity Boards (SEBs) into separate companies for transmission and distribution of electricity. This would then allow consumers the choice of the company they want. But Roy’s amendments rule out any break-up of the SEB which could mean that power reforms could be stalled even before they begin.Roy even plays West Bengal politics to the hilt by wanting the Bill to contain clauses whereby the Centre would foot the bill for the largesse by the governments in states. Roy has sought power for states to be consulted before framing national policies through a change in clause 3. He has even demanded that clause 65 of the Bill be changed to allow states to get finances from the Centre to subsidise ‘‘a class of consumers’’ if the tariff determined by the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) don’t suit the political compulsions of state governments.Bagrodia, for his part, has suggested an amendment which could rule out appointment of retired bureaucrats to the Appellate Tribunal being planned for the sector. He has sought that clause 89 be amended to fix the age limit for chairman and members of Central and state regulatory commissions at 60 instead of the prescribed 65 years. He has also sought to make the state and central commissions be answerable to the state legislatures and Parliament respectively. What Bagrodia has also suggested — and which could help increase the independence of the regulators — is that if the government issues a policy directive limiting the power of the regulators, the same would have to be laid in Parliament, thereby giving the regulators Parliamentary protection.Bagrodia has, however, restricted inspections on power theft under clause 126 to be held ‘during routine working hours.’ So if theft of electricity takes place after office hours everyday, the Bill will not be able to persecute anybody for fast trials under this legislation.Sibal and Pranab Mukherjee have stated that eight states of Orissa, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh which have already enacted some legislations governing reforms in the power sector be excluded from the purview of this Bill. This would mean that there would be one law for the rest of India governed through this Bill while these eight states will have their own laws.Apart from the fact that each of the 81 suggested amendments will have to be debated and the government will have to argue its case in the House, there are several glaring typographical errors in the Bill which has been passed by the Lok Sabha.For example, the Electricity Bill 2003 has added five new clauses to the draft Bill of 2001 — Clauses 153 to 157 — relating to the setting up of special courts for speedy trials for offences relating specifically to the sector. But the Bill presented to Parliament instead of refering to clause 173 refers to it as clause 168. A simple mathematical error — when the draft of 2001 changed to the Bill of 2003, the ministry forgot to change this clause number.
